Interesting thread starter by Tobashadow on how to handle podcasts with pyTivo. Haven't tried it yet but if it works well we should ask his permission to paste his post into the Wiki.

With Tobashadow's permission, and after testing the podcast feature, I added this to the Wiki. In connection with this I made the following changes:

1. Added a "Special Features" heading to the main Wiki page and made the podcast item/link the first subheading under it.

2. Created a linked podcast page that currently just contains a link to Tobashadow's post giving instructions for podcasts. We have Tobashadow's permission to paste the content of his post here if desired -- perhaps that would be preferable ?

3. Since the main page is getting rather long, inserted a topic outline macro near the top which links to the headings on the page. I used the "inline" version of this macro but the other version, "pullout", is kind of nice too. See what you think. (Edit the page, change "inline" to "pullout", and preview.)

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If you are outputting to a 4:3 tv some tivos are know to not be a be able to correctly play back 16:9 encoded files to 4:3 TVs. Right now tivos with TSNs starting with '540', '649' are known not to work. If you set aspect169=false for your tivo and it starts to work report the first 3 digits of your TSN and I will add it to the default blacklist.

If you are using a 16:9 tv make sure to have the tivo set to output 16:9.

I set aspect169=false and widescreen videos are working fine now. Since it's a 16:9 TV they play with black bars on all 4 sides, but I can just use the TV's zoom and it looks fine.

Beacon IP list instead of single 255.255.255.255 (for multihome machines, python appears to only broadcast to one interface using the default)

I think the default width you chose is good for your 540. Do we know if it will be good for other models? (e.g., 649 and 240).

544x480 (3/4 D1) is listed as an acceptable size in the Tivo-go-back specs but I haven't tried it on my 649. (It does not record to that size for any quality setting.)

I believe pyTivo is already reading the model number from info sent by the Tivo, so it should be possible to set the output width differently for different models -- if necessary.

Edit:
I just edited my transcode.py file to force it to encode to 544 width and transfered a 320x240 WMV to my TiVo. Seemed to work fine.

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For a while I thought it was too good to be true -- I started the pyTivo transfer before the complete file had downloaded (just to see what would happen). It played OK! But only for part of the program.

I run it on Linux and use bashpodder as my podcatcher. I can start watching a podcast on my Tivo via pyTivo as its being downloaded with bashpodder and it will view all the way through until the end no problem.

I wonder dlfl if maybe your podcatcher was downloading kind of slow and pyTivo "caught up" with it.

Hmm, I run it on Linux and use bashpodder as my podcatcher and I can start watching a podcast on my Tivo via pyTivo as its being downloaded with bashpodder and it will view all the way until the end no problem.

Hmm.... and hmm again! I tried to repeat this today and Doppler now is appending ".incomplete" to every file name it is downloading -- which means it isn't recognized at all in the NPL list. (Presumably it will be after the download completes and [presumably] Doppler removes the incomplete extension). I uninstalled Doppler and installed a different version and it did the same thing.

So now I'm wondering how I ever started transfering a file via pyTivo while Doppler was still downloading it !
Any recommendations for solid Windows XP podcatcher software will be appreciated! Although I can't fault Doppler for this behavior since it probably prevents some bad effects resulting from trying to use the downloaded file before it is complete. Just seems strange that its behavior has changed overnight!

@Tobashadow: Does your Doppler act like this?

I looked up bashpodder but it seems to be unix/linux only so I can't use it.

EDIT: Never mind! Must have been a brain fart!
What must have happened:
1. While I was getting familiar with Doppler it downloaded at least one complete episode of DL.TV and was working on another.
2. I started playing the complete already downloaded episode via pyTivo but thinking I was transfering the one that was currently downloading.
3. All this downloading and transfering was funneling through my wireless laptop connection into my router and it got behind on the pyTivo transfer.

I suspect that (bandwidth permitting) I could pyTivo transfer a file while it was still downloading -- but it would require a different podcatcher that didn't assign a temporary name (with a non-video extension) to the file being downloaded. For this to work requires the duration to be available from the file header, which it must be or ocntscha wouldn't be able to do it! (I think.)

Well I hope this has been a valuable learning experience for someone besides me!

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Hmm.... and hmm again! I tried to repeat this today and Doppler now is appending ".incomplete" to every file name it is downloading -- which means it isn't recognized at all in the NPL list. (Presumably it will be after the download completes and [presumably] Doppler removes the incomplete extension). I uninstalled Doppler and installed a different version and it did the same thing.

So now I'm wondering how I ever started transfering a file via pyTivo while Doppler was still downloading it !
Any recommendations for solid Windows XP podcatcher software will be appreciated! Although I can't fault Doppler for this behavior since it probably prevents some bad effects resulting from trying to use the downloaded file before it is complete. Just seems strange that its behavior has changed overnight!

@Tobashadow: Does your Doppler act like this?

I looked up bashpodder but it seems to be unix/linux only so I can't use it.

EDIT: Never mind! Must have been a brain fart!
What must have happened:
1. While I was getting getting familiar with Doppler it downloaded at least one complete episode of DL.TV and was working on another.
2. I started playing the complete already downloaded episode via pyTivo but thinking I was transfering the one that was currently downloading.
3. All this downloading and transfering was funneling through my wireless laptop connection into my router and it got behind on the pyTivo transfer.

I suspect that (bandwidth permitting) I could pyTivo transfer a file while it was still downloading -- but it would require a different podcatcher that didn't assign a temporary name (with a non-video extension) to the file being downloaded. For this to work requires the duration to be available from the file header, which it must be or ocntscha wouldn't be able to do it! (I think.)

Well I hope this has been a valuable learning experience for someone besides me!

No bad effect's on my end, i choose Doppler for the low memory usage and that it allows you to pick the download folder on a per podcast feed ability, and for the automatic cleanup feature.

My net connection download's a average 200mb video file fast enough that i wouldnt have a problem with incomplete file's. I also tend to not watch stuff while it is being transcoded on the fly to the tivo right after it start's. I give it 5-15 min's or so of a headstart incase of bottleneck's in the network or glitch's on the computer or for large area's in the video i wish to skip.

I have a bunch of subfolders (like I'm sure most of you do) under /home/nas/Videos (which pyTivo is pointed to). They all show up properly via the NPL and I can browse them and see the recordings inside them ...

... except for the folder called Movies. If I go into that folder, it comes up empty. It's got a bunch of files in it: .mp4, .mpg., .TiVo, .avi, etc. None of them show up. I have the same variety in the other folders and they work ... it's just the Movies folder.

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I have a bunch of subfolders (like I'm sure most of you do) under /home/nas/Videos (which pyTivo is pointed to). They all show up properly via the NPL and I can browse them and see the recordings inside them ...

... except for the folder called Movies. If I go into that folder, it comes up empty. It's got a bunch of files in it: .mp4, .mpg., .TiVo, .avi, etc. None of them show up. I have the same variety in the other folders and they work ... it's just the Movies folder.

Any ideas?

Maybe the user pyTivo's running as doesn't have permission into that folder and/or to read the files?

It's not permissions ... every subdirectory under /home/nas/Videos has the same owner and rights.

I tried shutting down pyTiVo then renamed 'Movies' to 'Films' and started pyTiVo again. Now, no matter what folder I pick, I'm presented with two subfolders: Season 1 and Season 2. If I pick one of those folders I'm just shown Season 1 and Season 2 again. This is the structure under my "Dead Like Me" folder under /home/nas/Videos and I'm not sure why pyTiVo is stuck in it. I've tried restarting multiple times and now can't get it to show anything but those two folders when I pick a subfolder.

So where I'm stuck now ... when I go into pyTiVo, I can see all the subfolders under "Videos" and the <files> in that same folder. As soon as I pick a subfolder (say, "Heroes") I see two folders (Season 1 and Season 2). I can pick either of those and see the same two folders again and again and again and never get to any files.

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I tried shutting down pyTiVo then renamed 'Movies' to 'Films' and started pyTiVo again. Now, no matter what folder I pick, I'm presented with two subfolders: Season 1 and Season 2.

Well, that at least seems to indicate that the behavior is changing based on the name of this folder. Rename it to something arbitrary... maybe the code looks for folders with common names and behaves differently (and buggily) when it finds them?

I just installed this over the weekend and it's been working great except for one weird problem.

My podcast folder includes subfolders for each podcast. When I go into that subfolder and come back out of it through the now playing list, my now playing list continues to show those subfolders now plus the MyMovies icon. Sorta like that's the actual now playing list. When I back out again, I'm at the main menu. Going back into now playing will show that again, my actual now playing list "disappears".

I usually have to do a few things to get it to come back properly, like go to live TV or play a video in the Showcase area or something like that.

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I just installed this over the weekend and it's been working great except for one weird problem.

My podcast folder includes subfolders for each podcast. When I go into that subfolder and come back out of it through the now playing list, my now playing list continues to show those subfolders now plus the MyMovies icon. Sorta like that's the actual now playing list. When I back out again, I'm at the main menu. Going back into now playing will show that again, my actual now playing list "disappears".

I usually have to do a few things to get it to come back properly, like go to live TV or play a video in the Showcase area or something like that.

First... I have a Series 3, but as I understand from a previous post Music should work, just not Video. I'm running pyTivo-181 from a Linux box. When I go into "Music, Photos, & More", I can see the "MyMusic" entry and if I select it I can see all the music files (mp3s), but if I try to play any the TiVo says unsupported format and on my Linux terminal where pyTivo is running I see:

First... I have a Series 3, but as I understand from a previous post Music should work, just not Video. I'm running pyTivo-181 from a Linux box. When I go into "Music, Photos, & More", I can see the "MyMusic" entry and if I select it I can see all the music files (mp3s), but if I try to play any the TiVo says unsupported format and on my Linux terminal where pyTivo is running I see:

OK, how many of you noticed this example video bitrate line in recent pyTivo.conf distributions:

Quote:

#video_br=3Mi

Now how many of you are honest enough to admit that, like me, you thought this must be a typo? (But you knew what was really needed was something like "4096K" so it didn't phase you.)

Well I've gotten into the habit of googling "wiki <xxxx>" for any <xxxx> that puzzles me so finally I ended up at this Wikipedia page and lo and behold, "Mi" is an abbreviation for the binary prefix "mebi" which means (unambiguously) 2^20. These IEC prefixes are intended to avoid the ambiguity where "M" and "k" and "K" can mean different mulipliers depending on context -- and on the eyes of the beholder sometimes.

OK, now 'fess up -- don't leave me thinking I was the only one......

BTW, I found you can use k, K, M, or Mi for the bitrate number in the .conf file. They are all accepted by ffmpeg . k and K have identical meanings. but M and Mi will give encoding rates that differ by a factor of 1.024. And 4Mi gives 4194kb encoding rate.

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I believe the blacklist is overly broad with regards to 16:9. My Tivo, TSN#540xxxxxxxxxxxx (Tivo-brand S2 80GB), works fine with 16:9, but "540" is in the blacklist in Config.py. Removing it allows the aspect ratio to work correctly.

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I'm a Python n00b and didn't realize that I was using a new language feature.

If you want to preserve the 2.4 compatibility of pyTivo, then apply this patch, the symantics are slightly different in that when given an invalid width, this version will choose the next higher resolution instead of the nearest resolution, but in practice it shouldn't matter and it definitely is simpler:

I just wanted to say thanks to all of you who are working on this. I've got this running on my winxp machine and so far its great. I have one 260 connected to a 16x9 tv, and one 590 connected to a 4:3. Its all working great (had to aspect169=false the 590)

I'm trying to get pyTivo running on my lan. I believe I have everything on my ubuntu server correct, but seem to be having a total MRV failure. None of my 3 series2's list each other on their NPL's, much less the new pyTivo on the lan.

Does MRV have anything to do with the "Manually Add Server" option on the tivo?

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I have a bunch of subfolders (like I'm sure most of you do) under /home/nas/Videos (which pyTivo is pointed to). They all show up properly via the NPL and I can browse them and see the recordings inside them ...

... except for the folder called Movies. If I go into that folder, it comes up empty. It's got a bunch of files in it: .mp4, .mpg., .TiVo, .avi, etc. None of them show up. I have the same variety in the other folders and they work ... it's just the Movies folder.

Any ideas?

I am having the same problem. Full reinstall of pytivo and restarting the tivo didnt take care of the issue. Running build 185. Reverting back to the older build (181) which was working fine still does not fix the issue.